"Visited this aft[ernoon] the 'Metropolitan Museum of Art' in the late Mrs. Douglas Cruger's palazzo [on] West 14th St[reet].... art treasures (so called) are evidently accumulating in New York, being picked up in Europe by our millionaires and brought home. This collection promises very well indeed. Twenty years hence it will probably have grown into a really instructive museum."
鈥 From the diary of American lawyer and chronicler George Templeton Strong on June 3, 1873